1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to direct mail articles comprising an outer envelope containing a pre-formed reply envelope and a plurality of detachable reply coupons designed to be selectively inserted into the reply envelope by the recipient, and to methods for their manufacture. The articles and their methods of manufacture are especially adapted to personalization of one or more of the enclosures.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The method described herein is particularly suited for commercial production of printed articles such as advertisements, solicitations, and the like, in which the printed content is, for the most part, the same, and where tens of thousands, or even millions of articles are mailed. It is common for such mailings to include a postage paid business reply envelope and a coupon, token or other form of reply device to encourage a favorable and prompt acceptance of the merchandise offer.
Large volume mailings of this type are often "personalized." A direct mail article is personalized when information unique to the recipient is printed on the article and/or on its enclosures. Forms of personalization include the recipient's name, address, sex, age, account or billing number, and other pertinent information. The personalized information can be reproduced in the form of conventional alpha-numeric characters readable by the eye or by electronic optical character recognition devices, or by indicia adapted to be read by appropriate computer peripheral equipment, such as bar codes and the like.
Typically, solicitations for magazines, books or other merchandise provide the recipient who accepts the offering with the alternative of returning payment with the order or of being billed later. Periodical subscriptions of different lengths are commonly offered to new subscribers. A selection of one or more books or other types of merchandise are often offered, requiring the purchaser to enter his choice on a card or other reply device. It is also known to provide coupons identifying the merchandise with the solicitation, and the recipient makes known his choice by selecting and returning the coupon(s) in the business reply envelope. In order to process the orders using any of the methods known to the prior art it was necessary to have personnel open the reply envelopes, read and record the pertinent information pertaining to the order and indicate whether payment was enclosed or whether the customer was to be billed. This manual processing was time-consuming, and therefore expensive, and provided the opportunity for clerical errors. In the case of large volume mailings, the steps of opening the envelopes, removing the reply devices and making a record of its contents require large numbers of personnel to process the orders in a reasonable period of time.